


Wish Upon a Star

by RogueWitch



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Infinity Gems, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-03-30 21:22:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13960287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueWitch/pseuds/RogueWitch
Summary: Darcy goes to bed in her crappy grad school apartment, and wakes up somewhere very different.





	1. What The Hell

**Author's Note:**

> So, I started this a really long time ago, not really sure where I was going to take it, but I think it's ready now. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the wonderful support.

Wish Upon a Star

Chapter 1: What the Hell

Darcy clicked the lock on her front door and dropped her keys and Starbucks apron over the table next to the door and threw herself down on her futon. She sank down into the soft mattress and closed her eyes. She smelled like coffee and day old cream, and felt like she had bathed in caramel syrup the way her fingers still stuck slightly together near the base, even though she had washed her hands a dozen times. She pulled the pretty emerald jewel she had found, out of her pocket and dropped it on the table next to her bed.

The familiar rumbling purr of her cat broke her out of her thoughts, and she reached out and ran her fingers over the top of Rusty’s head.

“You know, girl,” Darcy rolled over and curled around the cat, who circled a couple of times before resting her head against Darcy’s belly. “I chose this, you know, I walked away, but as much as running away from killer robots sucked, I kinda miss not smelling like burned coffee all the time.” Rusty said nothing, just rubbed her head into her person’s fingers. “I know, finish my masters, get a real job, stop bitching. But, it’s taking so long,” she rolled back onto her back and looked up at the water stains marking the low ceiling, and sighed. “Right,” she pushed herself up off the bed and shucked her work clothes as she made it to her small three quarters bath, twisting the shower to hot and leaned back on the cold metal sink waiting for the water to warm up. “God I miss bathes.”

*****

The battered and frayed edges of her favorite book was comforting as she trapped the pages open under a heavy pot so she could read while she stirred her soup slowly. The sun had set over the mountains, and she could hear the chattering of voices from the sidewalk outside. Rusty watched the big wooden spoon as it made its rotations inside the pot on the stove, her eyes intent as her nose reached into the air and sniffed the chicken broth that was starting to bubble.

“Not for you,” Darcy shooed the cat off the tiny counter and leaned back to look out the window, her bookcase nearly obscuring the entire tiny window that sat over her bed. “You got your kibble in your bowl, this is for my bowl.” Rusty just sniffed at her and stuck her tail in the air to find something to amuse herself with. Darcy poured her soup into a chipped Culver University mug and extracted her book from beneath its trap, so she could curl up on her bed and eat her dinner. First thing she was going to do when she got a real job was move to an apartment with more than one fucking room, or at least one big enough to have a table, this eating in bed shit was for the birds.

*****

Her pajamas had definitely seen better days, but with every cent going either to food or her education, there just wasn’t enough to stretch that little extra bit to buy her a new pair of flannel sleep shorts. She fingered the little hole that had formed just under the elastic of the waist; they would have to do until they completely fell apart. Darcy turned down the heat as far as she could stand it, and then curled up under the thick wool blanket she had crocheted in high school. It was fucking cold in Virginia in January, and heat was getting more and more expensive every fucking day. Rusty hopped up on the futon and burrowed her way under the covers, her warm little body pressed into Darcy’s stomach as she clicked off the lights and tried to force her mind to wind down enough to sleep so she would be rested for her last final of the year the next morning. He fingers wondered briefly over the thumbnail sized green stone she had fished out of the tip jar that afternoon. The small jem felt warm under her touch as she let herself wish, if only for a moment, that she had just gone with Jane, if she had taken the easy path.

*****

Warm fingers traveled down her back, rubbing gently at sore spots, soft lips following down. Darcy let out a sleepy moan as the lips were replaced by a wet tongue on her neck, sucking slightly at the join of her shoulder, just the way she liked it. She cheered her imagination for bringing her such a wonderful dream, as a second set of hands joined the first, these fingers dragging down her front to pause momentarily to circle her nipples, pinching lightly.

“Morning, darling,” the voice behind her mumbled into her skin before going back to kissing her shoulders. “You said you needed to be up and out of the apartment by eight, so I think that gives us a whole hour.”

“And whatever could we do with a whole hour?” the voice that was making its way down under the sheets in front of her, a rough finger pushing her legs apart. Yep, awesome dream.

Then the alarm went off. “Shit,” the man behind her grumbled, warmth of his skin leaving her back, letting cold air travel up her spine, making her shiver. Then the alarm turned off. “Sorry, Buck, I forgot to turn it off.”

“Dude, you had one job,” the man whose hand was covering her mound gently grumbled, a single finger reaching up to run through her folds, when her mind clicked on. The alarm went off and the dream didn’t go away.

Darcy jumped up, tripping over the dark haired man who had been fingering her, and she would have gone down if the other man hadn’t caught her and kept her on her feet. “What the fuck.”

“Sorry, Darce,” the sandy haired man looked sheepish, and kinda familiar. “We wanted to surprise you.”

“Well you fucking did,” she looked down at herself and realized she was completely naked. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, where the fuck am I, and who the fuck do you think you are?” She looked around the bright expanse of the bedroom, a wall of windows along one side, looking out over a city that certainly wasn't where she had fallen asleep.

“Darcy?” the dark haired man on the bed slid to the edge and sat up, completely in his very aroused naked glory. “What’s wrong baby?”

“What’s wrong?” she sounded hysterical even to herself as she backed away from the men who were both looking at her like she’d grown a second head. “You kidnapped me, you were feeling me up, I’m naked and you’re asking me what’s wrong!”

“Umm,” the men looked at each other. “Darcy, what are you talking about? You live here. Are you feeling alright, darling?”

“Jarvis, can you contact Dr. Foster?” the sandy haired man asked as he reached over the back of a chair near her, causing Darcy to flinch back. “We need to get Darcy down to medical.”

“Jane?” she snatched the flimsy looking bathrobe he handed her, pulling it around herself with shaking hands, the chill of the floor to ceiling windows at her back. “You still haven’t answered any of my questions.”

“Baby, something is obviously really wrong,” the dark haired one pulled on a pair of flannel pants, and she finally got a really good look at him above the waist.

“You have a fucking metal arm, oh god. I know who you are, you’ve been all over the news,” Darcy’s back hit the wall behind her hard, again. Feeling nothing but glass through the thin robe. She was reluctant to turn around and put her back to them, but she did, after a moment. Through the tinted windows she could see the Empire State Building. “I’m in New York; how the fuck did I get here?” She turned and faced both men, who were standing a little behind her, their hands raised, worried looks on their faces. “Talk!”

“Umm,” the Winter Fucking Soldier looked at the other and he shrugged. “You moved to New York three years ago with Dr. Foster.”

“Jane Foster,” the sandy haired man supplied. “Right after the Convergence in London.”

“No, I didn’t,” Darcy shook her head, clutching the belt of her robe as tightly around herself as she could. “Jane stayed in London and I moved back to Virginia to finish my degree.”

“You’re finishing your degree up at NYU,” the sandy one said. “You wanted to be out the door by eight this morning so you would have time to get coffee before your last final.”

“So, we’re in Avenger Tower, where you live,” the Winter Soldier slid a picture frame to her across the floor and pointed at it. “We did not kidnap you, we would never hurt you.”

“Like I’m going to believe that,” she bent down to pick up the frame and turned it over. In the picture she was laughing, the Soldier had his arm around her shoulders, holding her against his chest, while the sandy haired one kissed her cheek. “Photoshop.” She tossed the picture onto the chair. “Do I get your names, I mean other than Winter Soldier? You know, since you claim that this is my house, shouldn’t I know who I live with?”

“Oh Darcy,” Jane came in through the open bedroom door, her hair pulled back carefully into a long ponytail, and her clothes clean and wrinkle free.

“Janie,” Darcy sagged and threw herself into her friend’s arms. “Someone’s been taking good care of you, you’re new intern must rock.”

“Darcy,” Jane took her friend’s face between her hands and looked at the woman. “You take care of me, you always have.”

“No,” she looked down at the astrophysicist, her neatly painted nails and her figure having filled out a little bit since the last time Darcy had seen her. “I left, it was too much after London, I left and you stayed in London with Thor.”

“Thor convinced you to stay,” Jane’s head shook. “We promised we would get real funding, we’d move out of mom’s place. Thor thought we would be more comfortable here at Avenger Tower, since Tony had offered him space. We moved here and you took over managing the Avenger scientists, and helped with Bucky’s recovery, and you have been living in this apartment with Clint and Bucky for the last year.”

“No,” Darcy sunk to the floor and looked at the three concerned faces. “I left.”

“Darce,” the sandy haired one, who must be Clint, held out his hand to her, making no move to come to her. “Can we go down to medical and have you checked out?”

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” Darcy said quietly, looking to Jane who nodded before she took his hand.

“My name is Clint Barton,” his fingers curled around her hand gently pulling her to her feet. “You and I met once when you were still in New Mexico, right after Thor landed. I used to work for Shield.” That’s why he looked familiar. “The team calls me Hawkeye.”

“You’re an Avenger?” she looked him up and down. He was certainly fit, not her usual type with all the muscly muscles, but nice looking. His gray eyes were sad, but she could see the laugh lines around his eyes and lips. “Aren’t you a little old for me?”

“Not as old as Bucky,” the man, Clint, mumbled.

“Bucky Barnes,” the dark haired man gave her a small half smile. “My story is way too long to tell here, but,” he shrugged, looking down at his metal arm, and then back at her. “We’re your boyfriends.”

“Yeah right, cause shit like that happens outside of fanfiction," Darcy scoffed and looked at Jane again, who just nodded. “What year is it?”

“Two thousand seventeen,” Bucky told her, showing her a phone with the date clearly displayed. The background was another picture of the three of them, it looked like they were all squished into a photo booth. “January tenth.”

“But,” she let Clint pull her out of the bedroom and into the hallway beyond. “I went to bed last night, and I was in my crappy studio with the heat turned down all the way, and Rusty curled up with me, and I woke up in bed with…” she looked around the apartment. It was huge, and there was definitely a kitchen table and from where she was standing she could even see a dining room. “Where’s Rusty?” Did she even have a cat here? 

“Probably in the living room with Lucky,” Clint shrugged. “My dog,” he answered the unasked question. “Let’s go to medical and see what’s going on, we can fill you in on everything else later.”

“With fun visuals, cause you know Tony’s got so much video,” Bucky was pulling a shirt over his head and then his hair up into an elastic. He had really pretty hair, she noted. 

“But not that video,” Clint pointed at the other man, snatching his own shirt out of the air and pulling it over his head. He looked down at their entwined hands, and back up at her, looking reluctant to let go of her hand.

“You really need to hold my hand?” she asked him as he slowly pulled his fingers away and pushed his arm through the sleeve and held his hand back out to her.

“Yeah, Darce,” he wiggled his fingers and took his hand back. “But if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“You don’t even know I’m your Darcy,” she reasoned. “What if I’m some alternate universe Darcy, and your girlfriend is out there somewhere, waking up to my cat and my crappy apartment, and feeling all alone. How would she feel about you guys all touchy with me?”

“If you aren’t our Darcy, I’ll eat my arm,” Bucky handed her a pair of leggings and an oversized shirt. “It gets cold in medical, and we both know how you feel about getting cold.”

“We still haven't proven the existence of alternative universes, Darce,” Jane said from the kitchen where she was making coffee. “We've been using the data from the Convergence to try and detect exotic particles that might indicate the existence of other alternative universes, but so far, nothing.”

“Can you prove or disprove something like that?” Darcy slipped the leggings up under her bathrobe. “Could you boys turn around?"

“We’ve seen the show, darling,” Clint wiggled his eyebrows.

“I’m still not a hundred percent sure that you weren’t violating me half an hour ago,” she set her hands on her hips and glared at him until the blood drained from his face. “Look at it from my perspective.”

“Right, turning around,” he nodded and Bucky smacked him over the head.

“Don’t be a dick,” the dark haired man told his boyfriend. “Why don’t you make Darcy a travel mug.”

“Absolutely,” Clint trotted over to the kitchen. “I assume you still like it black?”

“As my soul,” she confirmed, and tossed the robe back into the bedroom. If they really had been living with her for a year, they would completely understand her need to toss things on the floor to deal with later. Neither man reacted. Clint handed her the mug and held his hand out to her again. Darcy looked at it for a moment before taking it. When in Rome, right?


	2. Bizzaro Land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry this took so long to get out. I've been having crazy writer's block on like everything for the past month, and the fact that i have gotten anything out is kinda a big deal. So, that being said, here is the next chapter.
> 
> Enjoy!

Wish Upon a Star

Chapter 2: Bizzaro Land

Darcy followed the two men and her best friend out of the apartment and down the hall. They stopped at an elevator and the dark haired Soldier, Bucky her memory supplied, looked up at the ceiling and smirked.

“Jarvis,” he said to no one, just like Clint had back in the apartment. “We need to get down to medical.”

“Right away, Sargent Barnes,” a voice came from speakers that Darcy couldn’t see, making her jump a little. “Would you like for Sir to meet you there. Dr. Banner is already waiting.”

“Jarvis runs the Tower,” Clint said quietly to her, squeezing her hand reassuringly. It was a nice gesture, she guessed, but not nearly as reassuring as he might have thought. “He’s like Tony’s electronic Butler.”

“Tony? Like Tony Stark?” Darcy leaned away from the blond who had been slowly inching into her personal space, looking over at Jane for reassurance.

“Yeah,” Jane gave her a smile and shrugged. “You get used to it. You and Jarvis are actually pretty close, you know for him being an AI.”

“Ms. Lewis,” the voice over the speakers almost sounded concerned. “I have detected an elevation in your adrenal secretions since you were startled into wakefulness. May I ask if you are alright?” Darcy looked back and forth to her companions. Bucky nodded, and Clint squeezed her hand again. “As instructed by yourself, Agent Barton and Sargent Barnes, I have not recorded anything that happens within the confines of your bedroom, but my standard medical monitoring has me worried.”

“You’re an AI?” Darcy coughed out after a moment.

“As you are aware, Ms. Lewis,” the voice said.

“And you’re worried?” she asked, cocking her head to the side as the elevator doors opened, and the Soldier assured them in. “Isn’t that like impossible?”

“You have stated before, that I am much more human than some people you know,” she could almost imagine the voice shrugging. “I see why both the Sargent and Agent Barton seem to be anxious. There seems to be something wrong with your memory. Perhaps you have struck your head sometime in the last twelve hours.”

“Not that I know of,” Darcy mumbled, and had to bat Bucky’s fingers away from her head as he tried to probe her head. “I am lump free,” she shook both men’s hands away from her and stepped behind Jane. “Look, I went to bed last night on my lumpy futon with my cat, it was freezing and snowing in Virginia, and I woke up being molested by these two, I’m in a pair of leggings and a shirt that isn’t mine, and I don’t have any undies, so you’ll forgive me if I don’t want any touching.” She looked at Clint, who held his hands up.

“Sorry,” the blond’s face fell, and she almost felt bad. She watched him reach out for the other man, and Bucky linked his fingers with Clint’s, pulling the slightly smaller man to his chest. “It’s just, last night,” he looked up at Bucky, who shrugged. “Last night we were talking about making us more permanent. You know, like much more permanent, and now you can’t stand to touch us.” He looked down at his feet and shuffled back and forth. “Try and see it from where we are standing.”

The doors to the elevator opened, and Darcy pulled Jane out behind her before remembering that she didn’t know where they were going. She just wanted to get away from those earnest puppy eyes looking down at her from the man she only vaguely remembered meeting years before.

“Ms. Lewis,” a floppy haired man in a white lab coat looked up from a chart he had been looking at. “I didn’t think we would see you down here today, aren’t you sitting your last final this morning?”

“Um,” Darcy turned back to Jane with a questioning look on her face. “Yeah, something came up.”

“I’m here,” a voice shouted from down the hall, and the floppy man absolutely facepalmed. “We can get started. Jarvis, record everything, lets get Short and Stacked into exam room one!”

“Tony,” the floppy haired man sighed. Darcy got the impression that he did that a lot. “Darcy,” he gently led her into the first room that they came to, shaking his head. “What seems to be the problem?”

Darcy took a deep breath, ready to answer, again. “She doesn't remember us,” the Soldier’s voice was deep and gravely, and almost hurt to listen to. The emotion curling through the words made her chest tight.

“She woke up and didn’t remember coming to New York,” Jane helped her up onto the paper covered table as the two men who claimed to be her boyfriends crowded on either side of her. “Said she was in Virginia last night.”

“Nope,” Tony dropped down on a rolling stool and let the momentum carry him around in a circle. He tipped his head to the ceiling, and if Darcy had to guess, he was drunk. But, what she knew about the Tony Stark, he was usually drunk. “You, Legolas, and the Winter Boo Bear where at dinner with myself and the missus last night, then you begged off to bang around ten. You said it was to get some last minute studying, but we all know that you and the Tweedles do nothing by bang.”

Clint cleared his throat from next to her, and she noticed the slight flush creeping up Bucky’s neck. “We went home to study,” Clint pierced Tony with a look that could have dropped a lesser man. “Darcy wanted to go over some formulas that she was having trouble remembering.”

“Formulas?” she looked at Jane, who nodded. “I’m getting my masters in Political Science.”

“Theoretical Physics,” Jane corrected. “I came over and shared some on the numatics that have helped me.”

“The fuck you say,” Darcy looked at Bucky, then Clint. The blond took her hand and laced their fingers together, a crease knotting between his eyes.

“So,” the floppy haired guy started scribbling away on his notepad. “We’ll start with a series of CT scans, take some blood samples, and go from there. Darcy if you are more comfortable, I can do the tests myself.”

“Okay,” she just nodded and looked around the room. Everyone was looking at her carefully. Bucky had gotten this look on his face, like she was going to shatter at any moment. She kinda felt like she might. “Can I just ask one question?”

“Anything,” the doctor nodded.

“Who are you?”

*****

It took hours before Dr. Banner, call me Bruce, finally let her leave medical. She numbly followed Jane back up to the apartment that her friend kept assuring Darcy, was in fact hers.

“You moved out of a studio three floors down a year ago,” Jane shrugged and scanned her fingerprint on the scanner next to the door. “You and Clint hit it off pretty quick after we moved from London, and about six months later, Bucky came to live in the Tower with Steve.”

“And the rest is history?” Darcy rolled her eyes and pushed the sleeves of the sweatshirt she had been gifted before the two men had finally been convinced that waiting with her was making her uncomfortable.

“Sort of,” Jane dropped down onto the couch, Rusty jumping up to greet her. The cat rubbed his furry little head against the scientist’s arm before settling half in her lap.

“That’s my cat,” she looked down at cat that was snuggled up against her friend.

“Yeah, you’ve had Rusty for years,” her friend ran her fingers over the cat’s head, pulling a familiar rumbling purr out of the cat.

“No, I mean, that’s my cat,” Darcy sat down gingerly on the edge of the couch, leaning forward on her knees. “I got her when I went back to Culver, how is she here?”

“Huh,” Jane just shrugged and scratched Rusty’s fur.

“Right,” she pushed herself to her feet and started looking around the apartment. It was obvious that she lived there, her thick crochet blanket was draped over the back of an arm chair that faced the TV, pictures from London and New Mexico were placed on the mantel, and as she ran her fingers over the built in bookshelves, the books were largely hers, battered covers and dog eared pages and everything. “So, theoretical physics?”

“Yeah,” Jane nodded, leaning back on the couch, her feet up on the glass coffee table like she lived there. “When we moved to New York and we started actually getting paid, you said you wanted to go for your masters.” The scientist shrugged, watching as Darcy wandered around the living room. “Tony offered to foot the bill, but you were reluctant, saying that he had already given you a job and an apartment, and paid you, and often fed you, he shouldn’t pay for school too. But he pointed out that there was actually a clause in the SI contract you had signed that said that if you wanted to pursue an advanced degree that could benefit your job at SI, it was covered.”

“So I chose physics, something I have never been good at so that it was paid for?”

“No,” Jane rolled her head on the back of the sofa, a little smile on her face. “You chose Physics because you wanted to actually contribute to my work. I mean, I’ve been crediting you on all my papers for years, but now when I publish, its with your name right up at the top with mine. We’ve done some really incredible work together.”

“Yeah, so that’s going to be a little hard now,” Darcy put the picture she had been looking at back down on the little side table. It was a black and white of her with Bucky. Apparently they had gone dancing. The look on his face, he almost looked like those pictures from her history books growing up, if it hadn’t been for the man bun at the nape of his neck, and the metal fingers poking out from where his hand was fisted in her curls. “I was finishing my masters in political science back in my real life.”

“Darcy,” the knock on the door interrupted whatever Jane was going to say. Clint’s blond head poked around the door, searching her out.

“Can we come back?” he asked, his eyes pleading with her. “I promise no more touching unless you say it's alright. Bucky said your heart rate jumps any time I reach out for you, and not in the fun way.”

Darcy swallowed a lump in her throat and nodded. “Yeah, sure,” she rubbed her hands against the soft cotton of her leggings and looked at Jane. “Um, we were really just coming to get some clothes. I’m,” she sighed as Clint shut the door behind himself looking disappointed. “I’m going to stay with Jane and Thor for now.”

“Right,” he cleared his throat and scratched at the back of his neck. “I’m real sorry about this morning,” he looked at Jane and then back at Darcy. “If we’d a’known,” he let his voice fade off. “Look, I know you don't remember us, and that we have no right to ask, but um, once you get settled, will you have dinner with us?”

“No it’s okay,” Darcy found herself saying. “You didn’t know, and I bet your Darcy would have been thrilled to be woken up to the two of you. Hell, I thought I was dreaming before the alarm went off.” She tipped the picture she had been looking at, so she could see it again. She looked so happy, and so did the man who had been holding her in his arms so carefully. “Once I’m settled, we can start with coffee. Maybe up in the labs?”

“Sure, Darce,” Clint looked down at the floor. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.” He nodded again and then went into the kitchen. “Um, the dresser on the left is yours. And your favorites are in the closet, you’ll see your stuff.”

“Thanks for understanding,” she looked back at Jane, who shrugged and stood carefully, making sure not to drop Rusty. Do you mind if Rusty stays here?”

“Not at all, Thor’s allergic anyhow.”

“Yeah,” she slipped through the door to the bedroom she had woken up in and heard the door close behind Jane.

“Give them a chance, Darce,” the astrophysicist said, leaning against the bedroom door. “They love you so much. I mean, like Thor level love. Even I can taste it when there in the room with you.”

“I was single, living in a dingy studio apartment yesterday,” Darcy pulled open the closet and stopped dead. “The fucking closet it bigger than my apartment. Fuck.” She looked back at her friend and sighed. “It’s just, what happens when we figure this all out, and it’s time to go back to that life.”

“There were no exotic particles, Darce,” Jane said carefully, sitting down on the settee in the middle of the closet. “I don't think there is going back, no matter how much you want to.”

She nodded and pulled down a couple of pairs of jeans and dropped them on the end of the couch next to her friend. “That's not what I said. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my life,” she pulled some soft vintage shirts off a shelf and dropped them on the jeans. “I mean, not the tiny apartment or working a million hours a week at Starbucks and studying until all hours just to keep up, but I was doing what I wanted, no danger lurking around the corner.”

“You live with two Avengers, Darce,” Jane picked at the velvet of the settee, rubbing the fur like texture the wrong way and then back again. “You’re safe as houses here.”

“I’ll go to coffee,” she pulled underwear out of the drawers and added it to her pile. “If only to appease the men who supply me with underwear that costs more than my rent, what the fuck? There is not a single pair of panties in here are like Walmart bargain bin,” she held up a pair of purple lace panties. “This is fucking La Perla.”

“You get used to it,” was all Jane said, shrugging.

“Get used to it!” Darcy pulled out matching bras and dumped them on top of her ever growing pile. “Janie,” she turned and dropped onto the couch next to her friend. “I went to bed last night in a pair of sleep shorts that had more holes than fabric because I couldn’t pull together ten bucks to get another pair without sacrificing food for the day, and you’re telling me that I will get used to it?” 

“Yeah,” her friend tucked her up under her arm and hugged her. “It’s got to be a lot, I get that, but life is good here. I’m happy, your happy. Even Rusty is happily in love with Lucky, who is a very nice dog. I know you aren’t a dog person, but trust me, you love Lucky. He’s as much of a disaster as his human, and eats pizza, and steals the covers, but you love him. Just as much as you love his human, and your mutual boyfriend.”

“Come on, admit to me that the fact that I have two beautiful men seems a little weird to you.”

“You get used to it,” Jane smirked over at her. “This isn’t a dream, or a fantasy, this is the life we live. It’s not all sugar and roses. The boys and Nat still fight the good fight. You and I curl up on the couch and wait for updates from Jarvis and eat our weight in ice cream. The guys come back injured, sometimes really badly. But we’re happy.”

“Okay, coffee,” Darcy snaked her arms around her friend and looked at the pile of clothes sitting next to them. “Any idea where I might find like a suitcase, or a shopping bag to put this stuff in?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a small token in the box below, get my muse rolling, cause she's being a bit of a bitch lately.


	3. Who Are You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the muse is back! I spent the afternoon flushing out the story line, and figuring out exactly what I needed in terms of mythology. So here we are. Chapter three!
> 
> For those of you who read my other stuff, yes my shoulder is doing much better. For everyone else, I dislocated my shoulder a few weeks ago, which has contributed to the fact that I haven't been writing, along with the fact that my muse took an unscheduled vacation. I'm weening myself off the meds, and my shoulder is doing much better. Better enough that I've updated two stories this week, and plan on keeping it up for the foreseeable future.
> 
> Enjoy!

Wish Upon a Star

Chapter 3: Who Are You?

Darcy lay back on her bed in Jane’s guest room and stared at the ceiling. Dr. Banner had called to talk to her about the test results that he had gotten from the test that he had run. He patiently talked her through the results, his voice kind and soft. She could see why this other Darcy liked him so much. He reiterated that there had been no exotic particles, and the likelihood that it had been some kind of alternate reality issue was slim to none.

“Darcy,” she could hear him sigh on the other end of the phone. “There’s just no evidence that it’s possible, and if it was,” Dr. Banner sighed again, and she felt like she could hear him running his hands through his floppy hair. “There are sensors all over the Tower, Jarvis would have alerted us to something happening in your apartment, there would have been something.”

Darcy nodded her head and pinched her nose, laying out fully on the bed. “Right,” she nodded again and pressed the phone to her ear. The phone that was full of pictures of her and Jane taken in the lab the didn’t remember. Half of them were of Jane sleeping on the stainless steel work benches. The wallpaper when she opened the phone with a press of her index finger was Clint and Bucky kissing. It was a sweet picture, the blond gently cradling the other man’s face with his hands, they both had such soft looks on their faces that it made Darcy’s chest ache. “Jane tried to explain the physics to me, but I was totally lost. So, what did you find?”

“Not really sure,” she could hear pages flipping from the other end of the line. “All I’ve got is that you’ve either got some kind of hysterical amnesia, or magic, and a lot of unanswered questions. I mean the laws of physics, the exchange of matter, it just doesn’t make any sense. You are you, the sensor data, I went through the entire night with Jarvis. Tony’s looking at it also, but after two in the morning, you and the boys were sleeping soundly. The first indication that anything was wrong was just after seven in the morning, when your heart rate spiked, followed by distress from both Bucky and Clint.”

“Magic and monsters,” Darcy mumbled.

“What was that?” Dr. Banner asked.

“Nothing,” she pinched her nose again and rubbed into the furrow between her brows. “So, what you’re saying is that this is my life, and I’d better get used to it.”

“Darcy, I don’t know what else to do, what other tests to run,” the stress was clear in his voice.

“It’s okay,” she pushed herself back up and looked around the sparse bedroom. “Thank you for your help, Dr. Banner, I know you have more important things to do.”

“Please call me Bruce,” she heard him sigh again. Yep, he must do that like all the time. “And there is nothing more important than helping out a friend.”

“Right,” Darcy nodded. “So, thanks, and I’m going to let you get back to your own life.”

“Let me know if you need anything, Darcy,” was all he said before he hung up.

*****

She had been flipping through her phone, laying on the comfortable bed ever since she had talked to Bruce. The sun slowly faded from the floor to ceiling windows, but the bright light from the phone screen never faded. The things that she had learned about herself, or alternate self, were that she took way too many pictures of her cat, which she still couldn’t figure out how Rusty was in both places. She learned that Jane still slept in the most unlikely places when left to her own devices, and that this Darcy was in love. Like really in love. The crazy, head over heels, stupid in love that she had thought was only real in movies and Jane Austen novels. She was in love with the two men that she had woken up with. And if the looks they gave her in the pictures and videos that were on her phone where any indication, they loved her, too.

Darcy dropped the phone to the bed and rubbed her hands down her face, forcing the tears that threatened back where they had come from. She didn’t know what was happening, or what had happened, but she hated herself a little for taking away that love from them. That she didn’t remember going ice skating with Bucky at Rockefeller center, while he told her about taking his little sister there when they were younger. That she didn’t remember the time Clint took her to Central Park Zoo, or what he had said to make her laugh so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t know how to french braid, but there were pictures of her braiding Bucky’s hair, while he painted her toe nails.

She wanted the life she saw in pictures. And at the same time, she was scared that if she tried, she would be stealing it from another Darcy, who deserved it more, who had worked for it. 

A soft knock on the door made her sit up, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Yeah?” she called, sniffling a little as she rubbed the evidence of her tears on the sky blue comforter.

Thor stuck his head into the room, a small smile on his face. She knew Thor well enough to know that he was forcing it for her benefit. She pressed her lips into a thin smile. “Jane has explained what has transpired,” he pushed the door open further and accepted Darcy’s invitation to sit down on the bed next to her. “I am sorry to hear that you have forgotten your life here.”

“Not convinced that it's my life,” she leaned into him, and he tucked her under his arm, his massive hand cradling her elbow gently. “But thanks.”

“My little sister,” he kissed her gently on her forehead, his beard tickling her skin, his rough fingers soft on her face. “Be assured, that whether you remember your life here with us or not, this is your life.”

“How do you know?” Darcy sighed and sagged into his body, tucking her feet up under herself.

“I know,” he tapped his head and raised his brow. “I do not have the sight like mother did, but I know that when you told Jane and myself that you wished to leave us after the Convergence, that I was compelled to change your mind. I knew that if I didn’t, you would regret your choice one day, and I had to make sure that you never regretted, that you were happy.”

“When I told you guys, you just nodded sadly, and said that you would miss your lightning sister.”

“That may be how your remember it,” Thor nodded. “I came to collect you for dinner, my dear one. Jane has procured your favorites.”

“I’ll be there in a minute,” she smiled up at her friend. He squeezed her gently and dropped another kiss on her head. “We’re close here?”

“Yes, dear one,” Thor tipped her chin up so she could look him in the eye. “You are to me as close as Loki and I once were. You are family.”

“I missed you,” Darcy pulled him back into her and hugged her arms around his waist. “I was so alone in Virginia, just me and Rusty.”

“You are alone no more.” he held her to him, crushing her smaller frame into his body. She breathed in the warm scent of rain and power that he always carried with him, with an undercurrent of Irish Spring. “I will tell Jane that you are on your way.”

*****

The lab was Jane’s every dream. Darcy couldn’t stop running her hands over the shiny metal machines, none of which she recognized. Apparently, under the umbrella of Stark Industries and the Avengers Initiative there were no more duct taped together machines. She sat down in the chair by the computer that she figured was hers. The pictures of Clint and Bucky wearing what she could only guess was Halloween costumes on the desk. The blond was clad only in a gold speedo, hip cocked to one side, blowing a kiss at the camera, and Bucky in a black corset and fishnets, caught dancing, his head back, and a smile on his face. She picked up the picture and studied it, seeing the bookcases behind them that she had also seen in the apartment the men shared with their Darcy.

“That’s from the Rocky Horror party Tony threw a few months ago,” Jane perched on the edge of Darcy’s desk. “You went as Janet.”

“Not Magenta?”

“Nope, you wanted to be Janet,” Jane shrugged, tapping her fingers on the edge of the frame. “We had so much fun. Bucky ended up carrying you home, bridal style. Both you and Clint got so drunk. He made Bucky carry you while Clint rode him home piggyback. There are pictures. Tony’s got all kinds of video from that night, too.” Darcy just nodded and put the picture back on the desk. “Look, you don’t really have to be here, I wasn’t expecting you in the lab this week.”

“Cause I was supposed to graduate this weekend?” Darcy raised a brow at her friend. “And become a real physicist, so I could help you? Jane, lets not pretend that things are going to go back to how you remember them. I’ve been looking over the notes of the project we were working on, the data from the Convergence, and the formula that I was working on. I don’t understand any of it.”

“So,” Jane shrugged and picked up the other picture on the desk, it was of Darcy and Jane wearing St. Patrick’s day hats. It had been taken back in New Mexico. “You can still input data, or read through your books, relearn what you learned. Just,” she put down the picture and pushed off the desk. “Darcy, please don’t leave.”

“Where would I go, Jane?”

“I don’t know,” the scientist shrugged and started fiddling with one of the shiny new machines, making the lights on the side flash. “But you said you left, that you said you were done and left London, and I can’t imagine the last three years without you, and,” Darcy could hear the strain in her friends voice, as Jane tried to hold her feelings in. “I don’t want to lose you.”

“Oh Janie,” Darcy pulled her friend’s hands away from the knobs on the blinking machine and folded the smaller woman into her arms. “I can’t say how much help I’m going to be, but I’ll try.”

“Good,” the voice startled Darcy enough that she jumped back, nearly tipping both of them over her chair. “The Avengers would be devastated to lose the best science wrangler that we’ve ever had, well the only science wrangler we’ve ever had, but whatever.” Tony Stark stood in the middle of Jane’s lab, a tablet in his hand, not even looking at them. “I have reviewed your contract, because Pepper insisted that we made sure that you were covered while you recovered…”

“I’m not sick, Mr. Stark,” Darcy crossed her arms under her breasts, pushing them up while she glared at him. She had gotten over the fact that she knew Tony Stark around the tenth time he poked her with a sharp poker thingy while Bruce had been running his tests.

“Call me Tony,” he said, dropping the tablet down on the desk. “As I was saying, it's right here in your contract, you’re covered while you recover from crazy magic brain issues. Pepper insisted it was put into any Avenger contract when you signed up. You know, cause of Merida’s run in with Reindeer Games, and Boo Bear’s trigger issues. Blanket policy. So, you are still gainfully employed as the resident Science Ass Kicker, says so right here.”

Darcy looked down at the contract. The job title actually said ‘Science Ass Kicker,’ cause of course it did. “I’m not the same person that signed this contract, Tony.”

“There’s no use going back to yesterday, we were different people then,” Tony swiped the tablet from her hands and turned it off.

“Did you just misquote Lewis Carroll?”

“We’re all mad here,” was all he said. “Get to work Boobs McGee, I expect my coffee black, and every three hours. Bruce likes green tea. And if you wave Thor in front of Jane, she comes up for air.”

“I actually knew the last one,” Darcy said under her breath.

“You’re late for your daily checking with Captain Tight Ass, too,” the door closed behind Tony, who jumped into the open elevator and threw them a peace sign as the doors closed.

“So,” Darcy raised a brow at Jane.

“Yes, he’s always like that,” the scientist pulled a dry erase marker out from under a clear board and erased a few figures and replaced them, pressing the capped end under her chin. “Steve tends to go to the gym and gets stuck in workout mode. You usually go down there and pry him away from the heavy bag around now, make him shower and go do something other than hit things. Most of the time you push him in Sam’s direction.”

“And Sam is?”

“I’ll call Bucky to get him,” Jane pulled out her phone to dial.

“No, just,” Darcy sighed. If this was really going to be her life, and people relied on her to do things, she should do them, or at least try. “Where do I go?” Both feet down the rabbit hole, right?

*****

Darcy managed to get Steve away from the heavy bag, and down to Sam’s office, or apartment. She wasn’t really clear on that. The man who she had only known before shoving him into the shower as a face on TV, as The Captain America, had been surprisingly easy to push into doing what she told him. He had only protested a little, saying that it was okay that she didn’t come find him, that he knew that she didn’t really remember. Darcy had just pushed him into the locker room and flicked a towel at him before he disappeared into the frosted glass shower. After waiting for him to change, she flicked through more pictures on the phone. She had picture with a red head she knew as the Black Widow, the other woman’s arm around her shoulder, holding shots of vodka and sitting on a beach somewhere with big hats blocking the sun. There were more pictures with Thor and Jane, and Steve, too. 

She pushed Steve into the elevator and told Jarvis to take him down to Sam. He kissed her cheek before the doors closed, and promised to come see her later. Darcy stood there looking at the closed doors and pulled the phone out from her back pocket, looking at the last picture that had been taken. It was from the night before she had woken up there. It was a selfie of her with the boys in their apartment. Darcy was in the middle, crushed between the boys. It looked like she had been sitting in Bucky’s lap, while Clint was playfully biting at her throat. She turned off the screen and tucked the phone back into her pocket. She squared her shoulders.

*****

When she made her way back down to the lab, Bucky was leaning against her desk, holding a cup of coffee. He gave her a shy wave as she pushed through the door.

“I usually come down and take you to lunch,” he said quietly. “But you said coffee, in the lab, so,” he held out the mug to her with a shrug.

“Thanks,” she took the coffee and held it in her hands. The cup was a little hot between her palms, but she didn’t want to put it down. Bucky already looked so nervous that going over to her desk and bringing her too close to the man she barely knew, who was looking at her with such pain and longing in his eyes, didn’t seem like a good idea. “Um,” she looked over to Jane. Her friend capped her marker and shrugged, grabbing her bag and left through the doors. “Right, so,” Darcy rolled her eyes at herself and put the cup down on Jane’s abandoned desk. “I don’t have any idea what to say to you.”

“Right,” Bucky sat down in her chair, legs spread and leaned forward. “I don’t know how to do this either, doll.” His head dropped down between his shoulders and he sighed. “So, Clint and I talked last night,” he said to the floor between his feet. “We get that you don’t remember us, but we’d like to get to know you again?”

“Like what?” Darcy leaned against Jane’s desk, arms crossed over her stomach and looked at the man in front of her. “You want to date me all over again?”

“We don’t feel complete without you,” he said so quietly she almost missed it. “Maybe you get to know us as friends? See if you can see yourself as our missing piece again?”

“I watched the videos on the phone,” she picked up the coffee and took a tentative sip. It was dark and rich, and just the right temperature. “I feel sick to my stomach, watching how happy you are.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Bucky pushed himself to his feet and wiped his face with his flesh hand. “We’ll,” he blinked up at the ceiling and then looked over at the door. “I’ll tell Clint we should leave you alone.”

“No,” Darcy caught his arm before he could leave, her fingers curling around the cool metal. “That’s not what I meant.” His lashes clung together, wet from the tears that he tried not to show her. “I mean, I feel so bad for taking her away from you guys.”

“You didn’t take,” he shook his head. “You’re still here, you just,” he took her hand from where it was gripping his metal forearm. “Darcy,” he linked their fingers together, and tipped her chin up to look in his eyes. “On Fridays the three of us order in and watch movies. Stuff I missed, movies that you and Clint love. Come up tonight, and watch a movie with us. We can invite Jane and Thor and everyone if you’d feel better, but please come.”

“What are we watching?” she let him pull her back over to her desk. He perched on the end and held her hand.

“Um,” Bucky played with her fingers where they were linked with his prosthetic ones. “You’ve been on a cult classic kick since Rocky Horror night,” he looked at the picture on her desk and huffed out a laugh. “We watched it like ten times after that night.”

“It’s a favorite,” Darcy smiled at him.

“I know,” he tucked a curl behind her ear, making her shiver. She took a step back from where she had almost been standing between his spread thighs. She let him keep her hand, though. “Clint requested Donny Darko.”

“Great movie,” she nodded. “Okay. I’ll come. No need to invite the cavalry.”

“General Tso’s and crab rangoon?”

“And pot stickers,” Darcy took a deep breath around the lump forming in her chest. “Um,” she looked around the lab and then back at the man who was watching her with a careful expression.

“If it’s too much,” Bucky stood and dropped her hand, rubbing his against the front of his thighs on the dark material of his jeans. “It’s how you and Clint,” he waved his hands around. “You guys brought me movies and books, and stuff when I was recovering.”

“Yeah?”

“You read the entire Harry Potter series to me, even before I was me again,” he rubbed the back of his neck and peered up at her through his lashes, still damp and clinging together.

“Okay,” Darcy nodded, taking his hand back with both of hers. She could watch a movie with them, she could give them at least that much, she could try and find the Darcy they wanted. “Chinese and Donny Darko.”

“Thanks, doll,” Bucky leaned in to kiss her cheek, smiling against her skin when she didn’t flinch away. “Clint’ll come down around six to get you. He was going to bring your copy of Lord of the Rings and your fuzzy bear slippers anyway.” He slipped out of the lab without a backwards glance, and Darcy dropped into her chair.

She looked at the coffee that still sat on Jane’s desk. She drank the entire mug, even though it had grown cold and bitter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave some love in the box below.


	4. Baby Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm slow, and late, and I'm sorry.
> 
> Enjoy!

Wish Upon a Star

Chapter 4: Baby Steps

Darcy slumped back on the couch rubbing over her very full stomach. “God, why did you guys let me eat that much?” she groaned. The lights were low, and she could feel the men on either side of her like a brand against her skin. She could hear the jet engine crashing down on the screen, but she wasn’t watching. Clint and Bucky’s hands linked on the back of the couch over her head like a forbidden warmth along the top of her head, and she resisted the urge to lean back into them. She had to keep reminding herself that she didn’t really know them, even if they felt so familiar. 

Both men had been extremely respectful of her space the entire night, offering her the overstuffed chair next to the couch, not scooting too close when she sat down in the center of the couch when it was obvious that they really wanted her to sit close. Even if they wouldn’t say it, their warm smiles had said everything. Neither of them had touched so much as her hand without asking first, which was both wonderfully considerate, and created a frustratingly artificial distance between them all.

“I don’t recall force feeding you, doll,” Bucky chuckled softly, it was a little dry and tired, not like the full throated laughter from the videos on her phone, but it made her smile all the same. Over the course of the movie, he had slowly relaxed, leaning against the back of the couch, with one arm behind her, his fingers threaded through his boyfriends, while she curled up, her feet tucked under herself between them. “You were the one who stole that last dumpling right of our poor Hawk’s plate.”

“Yeah, he really looks like he’s starving,” she rolled her eyes and poked the man in question with the toe of her bear slippers. Clint had fallen asleep halfway through the flim, and was slowly slumping over until his head rested on the arm across the back of the couch, his warm breath ghosting over Darcy’s cheek, just far enough away not to touch. “You want me to go so you can put him to bed?”

“He can survive a night on the couch,” Bucky shrugged, carefully pulling his hand from Clint’s and standing to stretch. The hem of his t-shirt climbed up over the sculpted planes of his stomach as he arched his arms over his head. Darcy followed the sliver of bare skin for a moment before she heard him huff out a laugh.

“I’m sorry,” she looked away and scooted to the edge of the couch, grabbing for her plate. She could feel her cheeks burning.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Darce,” he caught her chin carefully with the tip of his metal index finger and tipped her head up. “Makes me feel good when you look at me like that.”

“It’s just,” she shook him off and turned away, taking her trash to the kitchen. “I don’t,” she dumped her plate into the garbage and leaned back against the counter, carding her fingers through her hair. “I haven’t earned it, I barely know you, I shouldn’t take advantage.”

Bucky leaned on the other side of the counter, letting the marble expanse sit between them, cold and unyielding. “When I first came here, I lived in this cell down in one of the sub basements,” he blew out a long breath, and looked down at the counter, his finger swirling over a flourish on the surface. “Not because anyone else thought I should be locked up, but because I was scared of what I might do.” He sat down on one of the breakfast stools and rubbed his forehead. “I wasn’t really me yet,” he shrugged, his fingers scratching at the stubble plus on his chin. “I was broken into pieces spread over decades, I couldn’t remember half of what I had done or had been done to me, but the nightmares where enough to keep me down there,” he looked up at Darcy through the curtain of his dark hair, a pained smile pulling at one corner of his lips. “Steve came down every day, talked to me, tried to convince me to come out, reminisce, you know, was basically just Steve. One day, I guess I had been there for a few weeks, it's all kinda a blur for me, he brought this spunky brunette with him. A girl right out of Bucky Barne’s pin up fantasies. Girl had curves for days,” his grimace turned into a teasing lear, making Darcy blush and look away under the intensity of his stare. “And you were wearing this dark blue dress, tiny little waist, breasts pressing enticingly against the conservative boat neck. You were talking poor Steve’s ear off about spending all of his time brooding down in the basement.”

“Sounds like me,” she said quietly.

“I took one look at you and said, ‘baby doll, what you wasting your time trying to talk to a brick wall like this punk?’ You looked right at me and pushed Steve back into the elevator, saying that you had it from there. And Steve went. You turned back to me and leaned over the back of the chair Steve usually sat in and looked me straight in the eye. You said, ‘Sweetheart, you want any chance at all this,’ and honest to god you ran your hands down the front of your dress and over your hips while you licked your lips,” he shook his head and leaned back. “I was done for right then, just in case you’re wondering. But you circled the chair and sat down, picked up a hardbound book and folded your hands in your lap and said ‘then you are just going to have to come out of that cage you’ve put yourself in, and come get it. And until then, I’m going to tell you a story about a boy named Harry.’ You read Harry Potter to me for a full week before you brought Clint down.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Darcy’s throat was tight just thinking about the man she had just started to get to know putting himself in self imposed prison.

“You earned any look you want to give me,” Bucky watched the back of her head, where it hung down between her shoulders. “You might not remember, and that’s okay.”

“It’s really not,” she interrupted, pushing off the counter to turn and look at him. “I wish I remembered all of that.”

“Maybe you will, maybe you won't,” he shrugged. “But we can start again, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she swallowed thickly, surprised by how much she wanted to just that. She wanted to earn her place in Bucky’s life, in Clint’s. It almost hurt how much she wished she could remember just one thing about their life together.

“Good,” he nodded. “Now, how about we make Clint a little more comfortable and put Labyrinth on?”

“I’m not keeping you up?” Darcy pushed her hair off her face and pulled it up into a ponytail.

“Don’t sleep much,” Bucky wiggled his fingers out to her, and sighed when she took his hand. “Plus, I kinda just want to spend some time with you, that okay doll?”

“Well, it is my favorite movie,” she smiled as he pulled her around the couch and pushed her back into her stop in the middle of the couch. Bucky carefully maneuvered Clint around so he was leaning on the far arm. The blond grumbled a little in his sleep, but settled again when Bucky brushed a kiss across his brow.

Darcy watched as Bucky changed the disc, then settled to her right. “Thank you for giving us a chance,” he said as he started the movie, kissing her cheek, his beard scratching against her skin.

*****

Darcy woke with a start when her phone started ringing, taking a moment to figure out where she was. The room was dark, the TV having long since gone to sleep, but there was a sense of warmth and comfort, even if she had slept in an awkward position on the imposing leather couch. She tried to roll off the couch, but was crushed between Clint and Bucky. The latter had his metal arm draped over her shoulders, holding her tightly to his chest, while his legs caged her in, his thick thighs clinging around her hips like even in sleep he was scared that she would run. Clint was sound asleep, face first in her stomach, hands tangled in the fabric of her t-shirt. At some point in the night her shirt had ridden up, and his warm breath bathed her skin, leaving a moist trail of drool down her side. He lay sprawled out on his stomach between her and Bucky’s legs, completely dead to the world, and dead weight against her body.

“Bucky,” she poked at the arm around her shoulders, not really knowing how sensitive the metal appendage was, and tried to sit up, but the man behind her just tightened his hold with a groan, his other arm came up to hold her still, his bearded chin rubbing into the tangled mass of her hair. 

“Clint,” she tried again, poking at the blond who was keeping her captive with his body weight. But like his partner, he only rubbed his face into the soft flesh of her stomach, his nose catching on her belly button. He let out a groan so sinful that if she could, she would have fidgeted between them. 

She huffed out along breath and looked at her phone dancing on the coffee table, and tried to pull the arms around her shoulders off of her, which only caused Bucky to tangle his fingers in her hair and pull her closer. “Jane’s calling, there must be a fire in the lab!”

Both men sprang into action, pulling her off the couch and upright in a flurry of moment, while somehow keeping all three of them from toppling over the coffee table.

“I’ll call Thor,” Clint jumped over the back of the couch, and ran towards his phone.

“I’ll get your shoes,” Bucky was off towards the bedroom before Darcy could blink. “Jarvis, activate code bad science.”

Darcy picked up her own buzzing phone and answered. “Hey Janie,” she pushed her t-shirt down and rubbing the slightly damp patch of skin on her belly where Clint had been drooling. “Sorry I didn't check in, I must have fallen asleep watching Labyrinth.” She turned around to a throat behind her being cleared, and blushed full on at the two men watching her with their hands on their hips. Bucky even had her Doc Martin’s dangling from his fingers as they glared at her. She shrugged and put her hand over the receiver on her phone. “What, you were squishing me, and the phone was ringing, what was I supposed to do?”

Clint rolled his eyes and trudged into the kitchen, flicking on the coffee machine.

“You slept with them?!” Darcy winced at Jane’s happy squeal.

“No,” she rolled her eyes and followed the men into the kitchen, accepting an empty mug from Bucky. “Well, yes, but not in the way you mean. We fell asleep on the couch.”

“And you got squished between them? Sounds like someone had fun last night,” Jane continued. “Anyway, I don’t mean to interrupt, cause you totally deserve to have some sexy time with your boys, so I will go to the lab, and you come in when you’re done.”

“No sexy times, we watched Donny Darko and Labyrinth,” Darcy held out her cup to Clint who filled it.

“Aww, I missed Jareth?” the archer pouted. “But you know…” he looked at Darcy who raised a brow, his face fell at her questioning look, and she wanted to kick herself. Two days before she wouldn’t have cared that she upset him, but after just one night hanging out, she felt like a total bitch for putting that look on his face. “Bucky knows how much I love that movie,” he finished hastily, turning to rummage in the fridge for breakfast.

“Next time, Hawk,” Bucky pulled him close and pressed a kiss to Clint’s lips and stool the coffee carafe from where he was pushing it into the refrigerator. “Morning, Darce,” he dropped a gentle, slightly hesitant kiss on her temple.

“Morning, Bucky,” she gave him a soft smile and slid out of the kitchen with her cup and sat down on one of the kitchen stools, feeling far more comfortable in the apartment then she thought she had any right to. “I’ll be down in a little bit,” she said to Jane, looking up at the two men who were dancing around each other in the kitchen, getting breakfast things together. “Just let me shower and change.”

“Are you sure?” Jane asked from her end of the phone, the tell tale crinkle of a poptart package rustling under her words.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Darcy rolled her eyes and took a careful sip of the hot coffee. “And you better eat something other than pop tarts before I get down there.”

“I had some nice beef sausage about half an hour ago,” Jane said sweetly, the satisfied purr in her voice barely covered under her saccharine tone. “Does that count.”

“Oh god, Jane!” she pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it. “I did not need to know that, gross.” She jammed the end button.

“Showers all yours if you want it, doll,” Bucky sat down on her left and took a long drink of the coffee in his hand, trying to hide the blush on his cheeks. “You got plenty of clothes here too.”

“You can hear both sides of my conversation can’t you?” she peeked over at the dark haired man, her tangled curls falling over her face.

“You mean one you where having with Jane about how she was dining on Thor’s dick for breakfast?” he asked into the interior of his cup. “Yep.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one disturbed,” she mumbled, accepting the yogurt and cereal concoction she preferred for breakfast from the blond haired man who was watching her from the kitchen.

“Hey Darce,” Clint raised a cautious brow and leaned on the counter across from her, like he was trying to gauge her mood. “You know, we have a guest room,” he shrugged and looked away, having a silent conversation with Bucky that she couldn’t interpret. “You know, if you want, you don’t have to stay with Jane.”

“Um,” she looked down into her own mug, swirling the small amount of black coffee that remained at the bottom of the cup.

“I mean, when you’re ready, cause all your stuff is here, and so is Rusty,” the blond shrugged. “He misses you, and so does Lucky.”

“I don’t know,” Darcy took a deep breath and looked back and forth between the two men. “I just, I don’t really know you two yet, and I would feel like I was imposing.”

“No pressure, doll,” Bucky stood and put his empty coffee cup in the sink. “But whenever you want to stay there, it's yours. This is your apartment.”

“I’ll think about it,” she nodded and drank the last of her cooling coffee and picked up that spoon in her bowl. Clint had made her cereal just the way she liked it, the exact ratio of yogurt to Chex that she preferred. “One day at a time, okay?”  
“Anything you want, babe,” he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and headed for the bedroom. “You mind if I use the shower while you eat? I gotta meet Nat in like twenty.”

“It’s your shower,” she waved a hand at him, and took a big bite of her breakfast. “You do what you need. Jane can wait,” Darcy shuddered. “Especially after what she just told me.” She tried to keep the mental image of Jane and Thor having shenanigans out of her head. “God, that’s going to stay with me,” she mumbled into her bowl.

“Yep,” Bucky pulled the coffee carafe out of the machine and refilled her mug. “And I have a briefing with Point Break, Steve and Tony in like an hour,” he leaned back against the counter watching her. “I know Clint’s not going to ask, cause he’s,” he shrugged nodding his head back and forth. “Well, he’s Clint and he sucks at this stuff. Don’t get me wrong, once were all comfortable with each other again, he’ll be fine, but the dating bit,” Bucky rubbed his hand down his face. “If I had left it entirely to him the first time, I would probably still be living in Steve’s guest room, and he would still be dancing awkwardly around us.”

“He seems a little skittish,” she agreed. “I figured it was just cause, you know, the whole other reality thing.”

“Nope,” Bucky shook his head. “He’s our awkward Puppy.”

“Right.”

“So, anyway,” he picked up Darcy’s empty cereal bowl and put it in the sink. “He wants to ask you to go to the zoo with him tomorrow. It's something you two used to do all the time, you know when we were still kinda dating, dancing around this triad thing.”

“Oh,” she looked over at the open bedroom door and then back at the man in front of her. “Yeah, sure. I’ve always wanted to see the Central Park Zoo.”

“Thanks, doll,” he rounded the counter and pulled her into his arms carefully. She took a deep breath of the warm leather and metal scent of him, and it tugged at something in the back of her mind. She sank against his chest and curled her arms around his waist.

“Thank you for being so kind,” Darcy had to keep herself from rubbing her face into the softness of his t-shirt, carefully pulling away from him. “I know this has to be so hard on you both.”

“You both were patient with me,” Bucky smiled down at her and she could see the sadness that lurked in the back of his expression. “It’s just my turn now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More love means faster writing, usually... as long as everything IRL does what its supposed to!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much!


End file.
